Wd revoke ILVA tender says Di Maio

'State committed perfect crime' says industry minister

(ANSA) - Rome, August 23 - The government would like to
revoke the tender that gave troubled steel group ILVA to Arcelor
Mittal if that were possible, Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio
said Thursday, while acknowledging that the competition "cannot
be annulled".
"If a company were to ask us to take part in the tender, and
there were reasons of opportunity, we might revoke the tender,"
he said.
"Mittal has always been in good faith," Di Maio added.
"The State committed the perfect crime by creating a
procedure full of flaws and illegalities", he said on an opinion
from the State attorney-general's office.
Di Maio has decided not to publish that opinion until the end
of the tender process.
But he stressed: "the competition is illegitimate but it
cannot be annulled.
"That's why it was a perfect crime," carried out with "an
excess of power", Di Maio said.
The minister added that a deal with the trade unions was in
the public interest.
Rinaldo Melucci, mayor of Taranto, where ILVA's largest and
Europe' biggest steel plant is located, said there was "by now
no limit to the...irrationality and contempt of Di Maio's
statements".
UILM union chief Rocco Palombella told ANSA Thursday his
union will not take part in talks with Arcelor Mittal on the
future of the ex-ILVA Taranto plant without the government
taking part too.
Palombella, whose union has the most members at Taranto, said
"the talks with ArcelorMittal are not private, the government
must come to the table".
"Enough of the electoral campaign.
"We won't stage any meeting with Mittal unless the government
is there".
Di Maio had earlier urged the unions to start up fresh talks
with the consortium.
Di Maio, who is also labour minister and deputy premier, said
earlier this month that he had asked the attorney general's
office to give an opinion on whether the process via which
Arcelor Mittal got the green light to take over ILVA and its
troubled Taranto steel plant should be annulled.
Di Maio has said the process is tainted by irregularities.
Arcelor Mittal got the OK for a takeover of ILVA, which is in
the hands of government-appointed administrators after being at
the centre of environmental scandal linked to high cancer rates
in the Taranto area, under the previous centre-left government.
Di Maio said his letter to the attorney general's office
requested "an opinion on the effective existence of reasons of
public interest to legitimize an eventual annulment".
"It will be up to the law to tell me what I have to do," Di
Maio told La7 television.
"Di Maio won't decide. It will be up to the attorney
general's office to say whether the conditions are there to
revoke the procedure.
"Then a decision will be taken"
Di Maio, the leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement
(M5S), said he was still not satisfied with Arcelor Mittal's
plan to take over ILVA after calling for more guarantees for the
environment and jobs.
"It is clear that this jobs plan cannot satisfy our demands,"
said Di Maio, adding that Arcelor Mittal had not made "steps
forward".
"AM must show signs a life and tell us if it will move from
the figures agreed with former (industry) minister (Carlo)
Calenda and then perhaps we can start talking again".